


So Much More Themselves

by unourssongeur



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unourssongeur/pseuds/unourssongeur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clubs: dingy, dark and sweat hothouses. But to Jean, they are the most honesty she and her friends get to experience in their daily lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Much More Themselves

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was borne of a random image of Rogue dancing at a club that I got while driving home from work. The X-Men are often characters who have to give up so much of themselves and I couldn't quite get the image of them finding so much in this dingy basement club. Worth noting that I took pieces of characters from the many incarnations (such as Ultimate X-Men Colossus being gay). 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

You know what I love most about clubs? The noise. Silence is a telepath’s worst nightmare, because when it’s quiet, we hear everything. Every stray thought, every murmur that people would never dare to utter. It’s...It’s useful, but gimme a break. A club, with music so loud most people don’t even bother thinking, that’s my escape. The thoughts I do hear aren’t words so much as emotion and sensation. If people are doing it right, at least.

Sometimes, you find the odd one who can’t let go and their thoughts just drag you back into the real world. Makes you want to buy them a drink, spike it, and tell them to fucking live for one night. I don’t, but I’d like to. Usually, they leave pretty quick.

Nights like tonight, when we all manage to end up at the same club, they’re my favorites. Sure I can party solo, but give me my friends and it’s so much better. They show so much more of themselves in these dark, dingy basements. 

I mean, look at Kitty. She’s sweet, and sometimes too quiet for her own good. Here she is, rocking thigh high Converse, short denim shorts, and a cropped tank top under a black vest. Her eyes and her hair radiate from the glitter she puts on and she demands that everyone at least look at her once. She is the goddess of this place and even the way she struts calls for worship. Right in the center is where she likes to be, bodies pressed against her as they dance. Too young to drink, but she looks just as high as the rest of us. 

I watch her sometimes, because she embodies what these places are for. She’s here to feel everything. And for a girl who is so often overlooked and passed right through, this is the only place where she’s allowed to be solid and _here_. She loves the feeling of skin on her own, not wholly sexual, but there’s definitely an undertone when she dances. She is in tune with her entire body and I’m pretty sure that if she found someone who felt it the way she did, they wouldn’t even have to get undressed. She loves the songs that have a heavy bass, rhythmic and pulsing because it’s a heartbeat that matches hers. 

And she’s not the only one who opens up here. Piotr, he’s like a whole other man. He’s so honest and open here, I’m pretty sure no one would recognize him. Tonight, he’s got a leather harness strapped on his chest, and a pair of dark jeans that look painted on. That’s it, save for the motorcycle boots. He could have any boy he wanted, and for once, he is fully aware of that fact. 

Topside, he’s so closed off and walled-in. He wouldn’t flirt with a guy who flirted first. Underground, though, his desire is made plain and if he likes someone, that man knows it immediately. Hell, he even got Scott to dance once, and that man is so afraid of his own sexuality, I’m pretty sure that if it hadn’t been Piotr, he’d have fainted.Tonight, he’s found a guy almost as big as he is and the two of them are swaying like there’s an earthquake. His songs are the ones that have a fast beat, something he can bounce to that makes him feel electrified and alive. 

Orororo likes to watch Piotr, too. It makes her happy to see him so free. I don’t even need telepathy to know that. She and he connected early on, both foreign and unfamiliar with the new world they’d landed themselves in. She was the one who brought him here the first time, convincing him that this place was freedom unlike any he had ever seen. 

“No one cares where you are from down here, Piotr. They don’t give a damn about who you love or the fact that you are a man of steel. Down here, we are all one. No one has a past, no one has a future. We are this moment and that is all.” 

Remy and Rogue seem to have figured that out on their own. But maybe they know that from life itself. They learned a lot of lessons the hard way, and down here is the place where they get to forget that fact. They always end up dancing in one of the cages, Rogue utterly in control and Remy all to happy to follow her lead. Everyone knows it’s coming the minute they see her. When she’s here, there is always a cage open for the two of them. 

Some things, she can’t forget. She’s always got her skin covered, save her neck and face. But she works it, and I’m pretty sure some guys would gladly leave whoever they were trying to take home for a chance to dance with her. Remy is all charm all the time and these lights only make it more true. The minute they start dancing, brains stop. Men and women want to be them, fuck them, know them. 

And neither of the two of them notice. This is their moment of intimacy and they don’t give a damn who sees. She gives more than she can when her guard is up and he responds the way he would up top, were things different. They embody every emotion that people around them are feeling. Love, lust, fear, hunger, all of them can be seen in the way they dance with each other. It is beautiful and tragic and perfect. 

Scott could learn a lot from them. Even down here, he doesn’t know how to exist in his body. He’s the perfect hipster, ruby quartz glasses adding to the total effect perfectly. At first he came to try and look after us, evidently not realizing that we don’t need a leader in this oblivion. When he did realize, he went rigid as hell and would not loosen up. He’d still come, just sitting at the bar and having a few local brews. 

Then Piotr got him to dance. No one can say no to Piotr when he wants to dance, but that doesn’t mean Scott didn’t try. In the end though, he couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the buzz, or the music, or maybe it was Piotr unabashedly reminding him that he had a body and that sexuality wasn’t going to kill him, but Scott finally let go. He danced with Piotr, then with anyone who wanted to. It always takes him a few beers, but he always gets there. Orororo has helped him a time or two.

Down here, Orororo lives to make people forget who they are in the daylight. “I was worshipped as a goddess back home. Maybe I want to make someone else feel that way, too.” 

And she does. Everyone she even glances at feels holy for that instant. In this manmade dusk, she is ethereal. Aphrodite come back to earth. Hair in long white braids, eyes and lips always metallic and shining, even the drunkest frat boy checks himself and reassesses his behavior when she passes by. They want to impress her and feel that feeling of being valuable and worthy. 

Her songs of choice tend to be almost intimate, truly coming alive when they play. She presses close, not like Kitty, who longs for the communal touch, the physical grounding. No, Orororo presses close because she wants to feel them. She pulls them out of their heads and together they feel the electricity in the air. It’s spiritual. Honestly, I’ve envied everyone who has gotten to experience that. Maybe some night, it’ll be my turn. 

Not that I’m hungering for anything I can’t get down here. This is my place, after all. Who do you think showed it to Kitty, Scott, Rogue and Remy? Even Orororo went out with me first. Because I know what people need to let go of. And I know how to let go of it too. I rock this crowd and they give me what I need in return. All this sensation, all this emotion. They are the quickest high I could ever find and the only one that lasts longer than a few hours.


End file.
